Polarity
by detective-sweetheart
Summary: There are two sides to every face.
1. Detective Benson and Olivia

**A/N: I actually have someone to dedicate this to. JO, the review you left challenging me to this particular word sparked my muse into going into detail for everyone, so this is for you. Thanks for the challenge. As you all know, I own nothing, so there you have it. **

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She is supposed to be the one who holds it all together.

What this means, she is not altogether sure of, but what she does know is that there are two people inside of her, and sometimes she can't tell which one she's supposed to be. Most of the time, however, it's easy enough. She is the one who walks into the precinct with coffee every morning, because the guys always seem to forget and none of them really want to drink squad room coffee straight off. She is the one who pushes at her partner's feet when he pushes at hers while she's trying to talk to the other two. She is the voice of reason in a squad otherwise made up of guys who have no problem getting into each other's faces. She has been nicknamed the 'Lonely Lady of the SVU' by the press, who never fail to notice that she is the only woman currently serving there.

She has no personal life at the moment, and doesn't care.

And this is because she is the one to whom even the most frightened victims will speak. She is the one who can talk a child out of a corner, or a dark room. The one who will sit there and be a shoulder for a grown victim to cry on, someone they can talk to and trust. Someone whom they know will help them to get the justice they deserve, someone they can count on. She is the one who breaks apart in psychiatric evaluations with Huang and is afraid that she'll get sent home for being too emotional, when in reality, she is allowed to stay because she is the one who can allow her emotions to show. She is the one who knows that you can't choose the victims she and her partner come across, but the one who wishes that she could, because if she had the choice, no one would ever have to experience the dark side of life.

She is the one that the department calls Detective Benson.

The funny thing about this, and the thing that makes her laugh is that nine years ago, she was the rookie in a squad, the one who had no idea what she was doing. The one who got emotional and let it show when she wasn't supposed to. The one who got in her partner's face after he started making smart-ass comments in front of her when she really wasn't in the mood to deal with it and he knew she wasn't in the mood for it. Nowadays, nine years later, she is the one who will shove someone against the wall and hold them there until she's called off, the one who will willingly hold a child victim in her arms until the moment where someone comes to take them away to someone safe. The one who held her partner together when his own life was falling apart, and the one who left him behind for a stint with the Feds.

She is the one who will give Detective Stabler a piece of her mind if he gets out of hand.

She thinks it's funny, because, when she's Detective Benson, it's like people can hardly mention one without the other, because they've been partners for so damn long and associated with each other for so damn long that people can't tell them apart sometimes. And it's funny because she never thought she would ever have someone that she was so close to. She is the one who throws pens at him because he has a habit of chewing his own, and the one who tells him that it's disgusting and if he's going to do that then he can just keep the pen. She is the one who is not afraid to get in his face when he's being a jerk, and the one that can keep him from crossing the line while barely managing to keep from doing so herself. She is half of a partnership, half of a friendship, and as he put it once, his 'better half at the precinct, but don't get cocky about it, 'cause my real better half is across the bridge in Queens'.

At the precinct, she is Detective Benson. Behind the scenes, she is Olivia.

Amused as she is by the fact that there are two people stuck inside her, she knows that there is also a line between them. At the end of the day, when she leaves the precinct, she goes home, because there isn't really anything else for her to do. She turns on a movie for background noise, sometimes orders take-out, sometimes cooks, and almost always finishes up paperwork. When Detective Benson leaves, someone very different takes her place, and when that happens, she is the one who will curl up on the couch with ice cream and watch whatever she's put on just so she can have a break from her every day life. She is the one who will pick up a book when she gets home and forget everything else until it's finished, by which point, half the time, it's time for her to return to work.

Olivia is the one with demons in her past.

She is the one who will pull the covers over her head on some nights just to make all the shadows on the ceiling disappear, and even though it's childish, she does it anyway. She is the one who watches the old home movies that her mother's friends used to videotape when they had nothing better to do, to look at herself as she was, before she got older and her mother and then life and then the unit jaded her. She is the one who will go on a walk in the rain because she never really had the chance to as a kid, and the one who sometimes has nightmares that she'll never tell anyone about, because she doesn't want to appear weak. She is the one with friends outside the department, friends who she talks to every now and then on the phone, the ones who try to get her away from the city for a little while, but it rarely ever works.

She is the one who knows she doesn't need her partner in order to exist.

Detective Benson and Olivia were the same person inside of her when she was in Oregon, but she was more Olivia then than she is now, and in Oregon, Olivia was the one who would stand on the rooftop of the apartment, staring at the stars. The one who emailed her partner with a fake email address and hoped that he would reply, because she might not have needed him in order to exist, but damned if she didn't miss him. The one who pissed off the Feds by letting herself slip into the role of Detective Benson when she discovered something off in the place where she was, and the person who might just be in love with the Fed she worked most closely with, even though sometimes he gets on her nerves. Olivia is the one who got into a deputy's face at a protest and nearly found herself being charged with assault even though she hadn't done anything. She is the one that pushed to the surface so she wouldn't lose herself while playing someone else.

She is the one who knows what she is doing, even if it doesn't always feel like that.

And what she wants more than anything else is to be able to do good, both as Detective Benson and as Olivia, because hey, no one said that Detective Benson was the only one that could do stuff, anyway. She wants to watch the lines blur sometimes, because she knows that it's the only way that she'll be able to do the job properly, because sometimes, the cases have to matter more than you want them to. They have to get to you more than you want them to. Detective Benson is the one who knows this, Olivia is the one who holds it all together. Detective Benson is the one who will knock Detective Stabler a good one if he pisses her off; Olivia is the one who will open her apartment door for Elliot in the middle of the night because he needs someone to talk to and he couldn't think of anyone else.

She is the one who holds it all together when she herself is falling apart, and the one who knows the squad inside out, and the one who has shadows in her past the same way a lot of people do, but she is the one who never let those shadows take control of her life. She is the one who searches for family and finds it, the one who tells Internal Affairs what she did even if the Feds cleared her, and the one who runs across the city with her partner when a suspect holds his wife hostage and the call comes to them. She is the one who will be there for the others no matter what, and the one who leans on them when she can't lean on anyone else.

She is Olivia and she is Detective Benson. Two people in the same body.

But she is still herself, no matter what, and the differences will always be there to see.


	2. Sergeant Munch and John

**A/N: And chapter two...**

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He is supposedly the one who has seen it all.

But the truth about this is that he came up from Baltimore looking for a change, not realizing that the change would be exactly what got to him. He is over thirty years' experience as a cop now, and he is still not tired of it. He has been through seven partners, and has stuck with one in both cities for longer than anyone else. He is the oldest member of the unit, the one who knows a little bit about everything, and the one who can usually be counted on to spout off about the government. He is the one whose desk is a mess and the one who will say something random every now and then just to get on his partner's nerves.

He has seen too many relationships failed and has sworn off love, for the moment.

Life is something that he has learned never to take for granted. He is the one who walked Baltimore's streets for most of his career, and he is the one who knows that it's not really all that hard to find a gun on the streets, you just have to know where to look. He is the one that has seen blood flowing in the streets, people shot point blank for no good reason, a child turned into a murderer because of circumstances beyond his control. He is the one who has slipped in the blood of colleagues as shots rang out around him, and he is the one who somehow made it out unhurt. He is the one whom Detective Bolander once said was born with a 'horseshoe up his ass', because things always seem to happen exactly when he's not around.

He is the one the department calls Sergeant Munch.

And he is the one who only took the sergeant's exam on a bet, the same way he was going to in Baltimore, only, things were different there, and people were betting against him then, and he knew it and didn't care. But there was no one here, and so he is the one who takes command of the unit when their captain is temporarily suspended/reassigned, whatever. He is the one who waits until there is no choice left but to hold a press conference, at which point he is the one the unit laughs at because he's in dress uniform and they're not, and they think it's funny. He is the one who has sat in that desk across from Detective Tutuola for the past eight years and the one who gets on said detective's nerves because of all his theories.

But they are still partners, and that is the one thing that will not change.

He is also the one who will stand on the precinct rooftop, just to think. The one who will watch the people passing below him and the one who knows that they don't give a damn what's happening unless it's plastered across the news or unless it's affecting them directly. He is the one who is a voice of reason sometimes, and the one who looks up things that sometimes break the case and sometimes don't. He is the one who stays in the squad room most of the time, because in all honesty, he's getting old and he knows it, even if he doesn't like it. He is the one to whom life has given a second chance, because when he retired out from Baltimore, he didn't think that he would have one, didn't think there was anything left for him to do. But he was wrong.

Behind the scenes, however, he is not Sergeant Munch.

And the problem with this is that back in Baltimore, John and Detective Munch had been pretty much synonymous, because on the first shift, there was no keeping personal lives out of the squad room. This was mostly because they all knew each other too well and were therefore always in each other's business, but it was also a way of coping what they saw, day in and day out, day shift, night shift, first and second, whatever. Here in New York, the two are no longer synonymous, but they are both stuck in the same person, though the detective is now a sergeant, and the whole unit still thinks it's funny. But where Sergeant Munch is the one who seems to know a little about a lot, there are still a lot of things out there that John doesn't know.

And whether or not it's because he chooses not to know, he doesn't know.

Ironic enough, but that's the way it is. Outside of the precinct, he is supposed to be himself. And John is the one who sits next to Fin and across from Olivia, who sits next to Elliot at the usual place they end up at when the workday is over. He is the one who will answer the phone in the middle of the night and the one who has changed roles by the time he shows up at the latest crime scene. He is the one who will listen to the others when they have something to say, and the one who will offer an opinion whether he's asked for it or not. He is one of the two who goes home to an apartment in Manhattan at the end of the day, when the squad splits up and they are no longer the detectives and a sergeant, but themselves as they are in civilian life.

He is the one who can find a conspiracy in a five-year-old child's lemonade stand.

He is also the one who sometimes lies awake at night and thinks of another night in which he stumbled across something he probably wasn't supposed to find. John is the one who can sometimes push Sergeant Munch out of the way, even when he's at work, because some things just have to be dealt with on a personal level. He is the one who will make an appearance at a victim's hospital bed, to read a seven-year-old girl a Dr. Seuss book, because the case got to him enough so that he wanted to be there, even though it was probably a bit odd for him to want that, but oh well. He is the one who sometimes sits at home with a book and sometimes calls the other three because there's nothing better to do, and the one who meets up with them in coffee shops at odd hours of the night.

He is the one who sometimes knows when to find himself and other times, doesn't.

It is easy enough to lose yourself, but when there are two people in the same body, it gets more complicated. Outside the precinct, it is supposed to be John that makes an appearance, but sometimes, that isn't the way it works, and sometimes, he's stuck as Sergeant Munch for an entire night. He is the one that will make the trip across the bridge to Queens just because Elliot doesn't feel like driving but he needs someone to talk to, and waking Olivia up isn't always the best idea, and neither is waking Fin up. He is the one who will sit on a front porch or outside an apartment building or on an apartment building rooftop in the middle of the night because one of the other three has summoned him, and they are the only family that he has up here.

He is the one that they can depend on when they have no one else.

He has watched Detective Benson try to hold herself and her partner together. He has watched Detective Stabler lose it, only to find it again after something hits him so profoundly that he'd have to be an idiot if he couldn't put it together. He has seen Detective Tutuola shot in the line of duty, and has been there to watch as his partner pulls together in time to solve a case he'd thought was never going to be solved. And he has watched himself become personally involved with cases, solely for the fact that sometimes, Sergeant Munch isn't the only one looking at said cases.

But at the same time, he has watched Olivia return from a stint with the Feds, having played cross-country SVU detective and pissed off her so-called handler. He has watched Elliot sliding into the squad room with an amused look on his face because of something that one of his kids has done. And he has watched Fin sit on a hotel bed in upstate New York while the two of them were on assignment, and he has listened as his partner revealed the real reasons behind his leaving Narcotics. And he has looked at himself in the mirror and seen himself and someone else, because there are two different people there, and he knows it.

He is supposed to be Sergeant Munch, the one who has seen it all. But at the same time, he is supposed to be John, the one who knows when to leave well enough alone and admit when there's something wrong.

The problem with that is that it's not always that easy to know which role he's supposed to play.


	3. ADA Novak and Casey

**A/N: Kind of a post ep for 'Blinded' if you look hard enough. There are hints at other ep in this one, too. **

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She is the one who argues cases.

She is supposed to be the one who knows what she's doing, but she is the one who isn't always sure that what she's supposed to be doing is the right thing. She is the one who had a personal life once upon a time, a personal life that disappeared five years ago, when work took off and she no longer had her heart on her sleeve to worry about. She is the one who has stared dirty cops in the eye, taken dirty judges off the bench, prosecuted the offenders who come before her with the best of her ability. She is the one who knows all the laws of New York state, never mind New York City, and the one who passed the bar exam on her first try.

In short, she is the one who is put together, and at the same time, she is not.

She is the one who has suffered a beating in her office because of her involvement in a case. She is the one who has faced proceedings from the Ethics Committee because of involvement in another case. She is a voice for the victims the unit sends to her, someone who fights for justice, no matter what. She was the new kid in the squad four years ago, and is now just as important a member as the detectives themselves are. She is the hands-on lawyer who likes to be in the precinct and likes to watch interrogations, and will do anything she can to get her detectives what they need to in order to give her what she needs to prosecute.

She is the one whom the new District Attorney calls ADA Novak.

Lawsuits are not something she is afraid of, but tell her that she's going in front of the bar association for something, and she is the one that gets nervous. She is the one who has one of the highest conviction rates in the office. She is a senior ADA in the office, despite her young age, and she has worked hard to get where she is now. She is the one who sometimes lets her views of the world get in the way, and the one who knows that sapphire is September's birthstone, a fact that broke a case, because it is her own. She is the one who can spot a legal book in a picture and break another case, the one who shows up at Detective Stabler's home to ask if he wouldn't come to court and testify in a case for her.

She is the one who blows the case on purpose, because of her own issues.

Legalities are something she is familiar with, and she is the one who has pulled more than her fair share of legal tricks. She is the one who made a deal with a serial killer who thought she would take it seriously. And she did, by sending him to the most high security prison there is in the United States. It was her masterpiece, she had taunted him, and how did he like her work? She is the snarky one, the one who isn't afraid to make comments that would get anyone else in trouble, but hey, she's a lawyer, and she is the one who can talk her way out of anything. She is the one who stands before judges every day for search warrants and to argue motions, and cases, and she is the one who very rarely backs down.

Outside the courtroom, though, she is just Casey.

And Casey is the one who rides her bike to work, because she lives and works in Manhattan, and it's not really that far. She is the one who shoves a skirt or pants and a nice shirt and sometimes a jacket into the backpack she wears while she rides and she is the one who has an iron in her office, so she can iron clothes on the desk. Casey is the one who walks into the office after playing softball wearing a shirt that says 'Sex Crimes' because that's her bureau and the game was between a bunch of lawyers from the District Attorney's office. She is the one who hits at a batting cage and looks really stupid doing it sometimes, but it is how she relaxes and so she does it.

She is the one who lost her heart five years ago.

It hasn't been the easiest thing in the world to find someone else to be with, but Casey is the one who has not given up, while ADA Novak finds herself in her work. Casey is the one who will sit at a bar with the others and leave when another ADA shows up to talk to her, the one who will walk off with a faint smile on her face. She is the one who loves to take walks through the city and sometimes through the parks, because the city's really a beautiful place…minus the people and the pollution and the cars everywhere that is. She is the one who likes to sit on a park bench at night even though it's not the smartest idea in the world to do so, and the one who tries to count the stars every now and then because it's one of those things she's always wanted to do.

She is the one with a childlike innocence that shows every now and then.

And she is the one who thought that once upon a time, she could help the man she loved. She is the one who identified herself as an ADA five years ago when the cops came so there would not be any trouble. And she is the one who had her heart torn open by one of her detectives, because of the case she blew because she saw in their doer the man she pushed away in order to save herself, because she saw in him the same person she could not save. She is the one who reveals her secrets to this detective, because even though she's in work clothes, ADA Novak has gone away, and there is only Casey in her place, and there is only Casey to deal with the hurt. But there is someone on whom she can lean in Olivia, and she knows it, and so she does, and she is the one who nearly broke when Charlie's body was found and only her business card was there to identify him.

She is the one who has seen many things and yet has seen so little.

Detective Stabler told ADA Novak once in an off moment that once she got used to it, it was time for her to leave. And then Elliot proceeded to tell Casey that bottling it in wasn't the way to go about it. Detective Benson once confided in ADA Novak that she sees herself sometimes in the child victims, because of the way her childhood was. And then Olivia told Casey that once upon a time, when she was sixteen, she was engaged to someone five years older.

She is a friend to the detectives as civilians, and she is their advocate at work.

Once upon a time, Detective (well, Sergeant, now) Munch told ADA Novak that the law wasn't always in black and white, sometimes there were shades of gray. That was before she was a month with SVU. Later that same day at the usual place, which they'd dragged her along to, John had told Casey that she'd fit in soon enough, she just had to go through the initiation first. Detective Tutuola had once told ADA Novak that it was the child cases that hurt more than anything else, because of the innocence they could all see that had been lost. And then Fin told Casey that it isn't always easy to go home at the end of the day.

She is someone they can talk to, and someone they can yell at, all in one. She is ADA Novak in the courtroom and the precinct and Casey everywhere else. She is the one who sometimes lets her own views get in the way, and she is the one who will fight to the last minute for the ones she loves and cares about.

Somewhere along the line she discovered that there were two different people inside of her, and sometimes it scares her.

Most of the time, it doesn't.


	4. Detective Tutuola and Fin

**A/N: There are references to past eps here, too, if you look hard enough. **

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He is the one who came from the northern side of the borough.

In Narcotics, the difference between good and evil was clearly defined. The cops were the good guys, the dealers were the bad guys, and if they were unlucky enough to stumble across a ring that was bigger than just Manhattan, there would be a task force. He is the one who found himself shoved into the leading role more often than not. The one who can get so lost in a role that sometimes, it's hard for him to return to the one he really is. He is the one whom the other Narcotics detectives looked to every now and then, and the one who somehow knew how to get them out of whatever situation they found themselves stuck in.

He is the one who keeps contact with the old squad, because he can.

And he never really figured this side of him as being sentimental, and he isn't, really, but being able to talk to the cops that he's closest to helps sometimes. He is the one who tells the Medical Examiner that he's 'cool' only to have her retort that she knows it, but is he 'ok'. He is the one who has seen a shaken woman commit suicide, the one who has solved the case of a victim whom he knew on a personal level. He is the one who tells Detective Benson that her heart is bleeding all over his shoes, the one that tells then Detective Munch that people have gotten off on a justifiable for shooting their partners, and one of those who helps Detective Stabler in an investigation that leads to an old abandoned warehouse and a girl who escaped because of the latter's intervention.

He is the one that the department calls Detective Tutuola.

The funny thing about this is that there have been so many roles over the years, that when he thinks back on all of them, it is easy to get lost. He is the one who watched his best friend from high school follow him through the academy, and the one who was stuck with her as a partner. He is the one who watched her fall when she took a bullet that was meant for him and the one who was there through every minute of her recovery. He is the one who would willing turn back time in order to change the way things had gone, the one who went in with gun drawn, no questions asked, because someone had gone and called a 10-13, because there was an officer down and if no one was going go in, then he would do it himself. He is the one who spent so much time away from home that he didn't realize things were falling apart.

But when things did, he wasn't surprised.

And now he stands in a different precinct, nine years later, and he looks back on the summer months, when Detective Benson was suspended and ADA Novak was in trouble with the DA for losing a case that they couldn't have won for the defendant constantly dirtying up the squad. He is the one who stood outside a courthouse and confronted said defendant because there was nothing else for him to do. He is the one who has made it through countless press storms with the rest of the squad, and somehow, He is the one who lets work take over more often than not, and the one who was shot in the line of duty and the one who came back shortly after being released from the hospital because being on leave got on his nerves.

Being on leave meant that he had to be someone other than Detective Tutuola.

It meant he had to be Fin. And the difference between the two is that one always seems to know how to handle whatever the world decides to throw at him, and the other one isn't always particularly sure. Fin is the one who appears after a psychiatric evaluation three years ago, right before he leaves the squad room, saying he's taking a few days, because the scene they found in that abandoned house was a bit too much for him to handle. He is the one who will stand on a precinct rooftop and think, and maybe talk to John, if he comes up looking, or even Elliot, or Olivia. He is the one who thinks he can hold it all in, even when he knows he can't and it all comes spilling out anyway.

Fin is the one who made the decision to leave Narcotics when Detective Tutuola wouldn't.

He is also the one who knows that being in SVU takes just as many hours, but at the same time, Fin is the one who wants a different relationship with his son than the one he has, because in all honesty, the one that exists right now isn't really anything. He is the one who sometimes wanders around Brooklyn on foot, because he doesn't want to drive and because he wants time to think and driving won't give him the time to do that. He is the one who sometimes drops John off at home if it gets too late at night, the same way Elliot takes Olivia home, because neither of them really like the thoughts of their partners on the streets alone at those hours. He is the one who will sometimes stop in front of his old precinct and sit there and think about the way things used to be.

He is the one who won't admit to the rest of the squad when something is off.

But on those off moments where he is Fin and Stabler is Elliot, and Benson is Olivia and Munch is John, they can talk as if there is a common link between them besides work. And there is, and they can let it all out because they know that no one's going to judge anyone else. And somewhere along the line, they all became friends. And now there is a new kid on the line, and on those same off moments, Lake is Chester and Novak is Casey, and Warner is Melinda when she joins them, and it used to be that Cabot was Alex, but she's not here anymore, and so it is just the current lineup.

He is the one who has been through too many changes, and the one who has seen a lot more than he ever thought he would. He is the one that goes home at night and stares at the shadows on the ceiling until he finally falls asleep. And Fin is the one who is there until the alarm clock goes off or a call comes in during the middle of the night, leaving no choice but for Detective Tutuola to take over again. He is the one who will run an interview, and get into someone's face, and on the flipside, someone who will give the other detectives hell for random things when they have nothing better to do, the one who will take the paper football that John throws at him and flick it across the aisle to Elliot, who sometimes proceeds to flick it at Olivia, but most of the time misses and hits her in the face with it.

He is a member of this unit and a member of Narcotics still, and on the inside, he can be everything that no one except for those closest to him will ever see.

Sometimes there is a problem with having two people stuck in the same body.

But he is so used to having to be someone he's not that it isn't always an issue.


	5. ME Warner and Melinda

**A/N: And here's your latest chapter...**

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She is the one who answers when the call comes.

The Air Force paid for medical school, because of the time she spent with them. She is the one who could be working at a private practice, but instead, she is working for the city. She is the technical side of things, the one who almost always has the answers. She is the middle of the night and flashing lights and she is the one bent over the body.

She is the clinical one, and the one who tells them why.

At the same time, she is a sheet-covered body lying on the cold sidewalk, because it is her latest case. She is the one with the clipboard, looking over everything. She is the one who can tell by a body's temperature just how long ago their latest victim died. She is the one who is not afraid to go inside to look for answers, and the one who sometimes has too much to handle.

She is the one the city calls M.E. Warner.

And this side of her is the one that is there no matter what, because there is no limit to her hours. She is the one who knows that a call will come in at any time. She is the one who testifies in court for ADA Novak, and the first of the unit to come after Detective Tutuola sees someone commit suicide. She is the one who runs a test on Detective Benson and keeps the results between them. And she is the one who keeps an eye on Detective Stabler when the department doctors give him medicine that will save him from getting sick on one way, but makes him sick in another.

She is the one who goes after another for the role she played in torturing people.

And at the same time, she is the one who sometimes agrees with Sergeant Munch about the government. The one who wants to swat at Detective Lake when he starts poking around and the one who keeps a meticulous eye on her assistants. She is the one who hates more than anything when something goes wrong. She is the one who knows how someone is killed and doesn't always know why, and the one who will stay in the morgue until an autopsy is done, never mind how late it is.

She is the one who has the answers that the unit needs.

The thing about this is that sometimes the answers aren't the ones they want, and she is the one who knows this, but one of those many who can do nothing about it. She is the one who records her own voice detailing the autopsies, and the one who has to weigh the organs that come from the body to make sure that yes, everything was normal, and it was just natural causes. Or no, it's not normal, and something's wrong, and it just might be something more complicated than she saw the first time around. She is the one who has saved a career and a friend, by finding an underlying heart condition in someone else, and she is the one who makes the call: accident, homicide, natural cause.

But when the scrubs and gloves come off, she is just Melinda.

There's nothing wrong with it, either. She likes when she has a chance to wake up late and not have to go in. When she has a chance to leave work at the morgue and walk around her house, because that's just Melinda. And Melinda is who she is behind the scenes, when M.E. Warner decides that hey, she wants a break. Melinda is the one who will run down a tiled hallway in sock feet with her daughter, so they can slide and stop at the end. She is the one who will come home early for no good reason, just to be there.

She is the one who can stop, but not always let it go.

Melinda is the one that thinks about the things that M.E. Warner has done, and the one who isn't always sure how to deal with it. She is the one who will sit in the living room and do nothing because she knows life gets in the way of being able to do that. She is the one who will tear through the house and clean things, because she is somewhat of a neat freak and can't stand being unorganized. She is the family doctor, the one always ready with an ace bandage, or band-aid, and sometimes even a piece of candy to make the tears go away. She is the one who can make everything better, before they get any worse.

She is the one who is ready for anything.

Sometimes, Melinda is the one who will sit at some random bar with Olivia, just so they can talk. She is the one who keeps an eye on an injured Elliot, because it bothers her not to. She is the one who talks to John in an off moment when there isn't anyone else around, and one of many who comes to sit in the hospital and wait for news after Fin gets shot. She is the one who is friends with them when they are civilians and a colleague to them when they are at work. She is the one who can sit and watch a movie with her only child and recite the lines before they're even said. And Melinda is also the one who will stand in her daughter's bedroom doorway sometimes and just watch, because there is nothing else she can do.

She is the one who stares at the clock at night whenever she can't sleep.

The clock really does nothing for her, and she knows it, but she is still the one who will watch the digits change, slowly, one by one, minute by minute. She is the one who is sometimes amused by this, and sometimes not, and she is always the one to answer the phone in the middle of the night. She is the one who sleeps beside someone else and wears a wedding band. She is the one who will sit in the kitchen with the radio on, just listening to music instead of doing the dishes like she probably should, before they start piling up again. She is the one who is up in the morning with a cup of coffee, ready to drive her child to school, and the one who sometimes manages to talk her daughter into wearing ribbons in her hair.

She is the one who watches her only child go off to school before heading off to work.

She is a doctor and a medical examiner, while at the same time she is a wife, and a mother. She is part of a unit during the day, part of a group after hours. She is the one they look to for answers, and sometimes, the one they look to just for advice. She is the one who covers the bodies at the scene and the one who tries to tone it down for the detectives when she can, while being the one who tries to tone it down for herself, and not think about it, but then she is the one who thinks about it anyway, and the one who sometimes curls into a ball underneath the covers because it sometimes gets to be too much for her to handle.

She is the one who knows what she is doing, and the one who sometimes does not; the one who can look at someone and know everything and look at another person and know nothing. She has found a certain peace with this, though, because she knows it is the same way with all of the others. She knows that they are one person in one situation and another person in a different one, and she knows that it isn't always easy to tell the difference between the two.

She is the one who knows that there is a different story for everyone, and two sides to every face.


	6. Captain Cragen and Don

**A/N: I still own nothing, people. Here's the latest chapter. **

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He is the one who commands the unit.

What he finds almost amusing about this is that he's been sitting over this squad for quite a while now, and he still thinks that they don't really need a commander, because they know what they're doing. He is the one who reigns them in before the brass catch on to what they're doing, and he is the one who insists on being updated on their cases every now and then. He is the one who pushes for them to do their paperwork and watches them every now and then from his office, just because he can.

He is the one who keeps an eye on them because he has to.

And he is also the one they talk to. The one who can order them home when they've been at the precinct too long, and the one who will chase them out of the crib because that doesn't mean home. He is the one who will quite literally run them out of the precinct if they don't listen, and he is the one who stays behind. He is the one who knows his detectives in and out and knows when they've had enough and when it's ok to keep them going; he is the one who will stand toe to toe with them and tell them that enough is enough.

He is the one that his four detectives and one sergeant call Captain Cragen.

To play commander of a unit such as this means that he has to be the one to determine where things are going and why. He has to be the one to let the detectives know where they stand before the brass can get around to it, and he is. He is also the one who will go to bat for them in front of any given commission and in front of Internal Affairs. He is the one who knows that every now and then, it gets personal, and when it gets to the point where they stop feeling things, then it is time for them to leave.

He is the one who hates to watch them go, but knows that it's more often than not for the best.

This happened a while ago, when he watched Detective Cassidy leave after the younger detective had a moment in his office where Brian took over, and Detective Cassidy wasn't there anymore. He is the one who has seen too much of the dark side, and not enough of the light side. He is the one who, fifteen years ago now, watched Detective Rossetti fall into a depression and he was the one who missed the signs until it was too late. He is the one who then dealt with a grief-stricken Detective Stabler, then the unit's rookie, in a moment where Elliot took over, and work didn't matter anymore.

He is the one who knows a little bit more than he wants to.

He is the one who has seen Detective Benson break a case just running on her own steam, never mind the constant stream of coffee that always seems to be flowing through the squad room in various cups. And he is the one whom Olivia in formed when she first came in that the reason she joined the unit was because she is the result of her mother being raped. He is the one who told then Detective, now Sergeant Munch when he first came in that this wasn't Baltimore, and he was no longer a Homicide detective, but SVU, and he is the one who told John before anyone else could, that if he ever got used to it, it was time to leave. He is the one who watched an awkward situation come before a commission and the one who stuck Detective Jeffries on a desk, because one night, Monique took over, and got into something she couldn't get out of. He is the one who watched Detective Tutuola transfer into the unit and the one who sat in silence while Fin talked to him.

He is the one they lean on when they can't lean on each other.

And he is the one who dealt with Detective Beck but never really met Dani, and the one who brings Detective Lake in the unit and then tells Chester that sooner or later, the others will come around. He is the one who welcomed Olivia back before Detective Benson returned to work. He is the one that sees the personal side of the detectives and somehow manages to keep it all professional, and somehow, they do, too. He is the one that does the press conferences and talks to the city over the television, and the one who sits with the five and answers the phone when the tips come pouring in.

He is their captain while he is at work, but off the clock, he's supposed to be Don, but sometimes isn't.

The stupid thing about this is that the other side of him appears when there's no one else around, and it is the side that stays in the squad room after everyone else has already gone. This side of him is the one who doesn't like going home at night, because he knows there isn't anyone there and he knows that there isn't going to be anyone there. Don is the one who keeps a bottle of something in the bottom drawer of his desk but doesn't open it unless one of his detectives needs it, because he is the one who is a recovering alcoholic. He is the one who knows them as they are when no one is looking, and the one who watches them in those moments where they have nothing better to do and knows that no matter what, somehow, the lot of them will always manage to stick together.

He is the one who got the call that was supposed to be the other way around, but wasn't.

He is the one who answered the phone only to hear that there had been an accident, and he is the one who fell apart when he realized what it meant. He is the one who fell off the wagon then, and fought his way back during those days with the two-seven. He is one of six who served as a pallbearer at Lennie Briscoe's funeral, with the likes of Mike Logan and Rey Curtis and a few other former partners that were still around. He is the one who three years later thinks about an old friend every now and then and tries not to think too hard, because it hurts sometimes if he does. He is the one who gets together with the lot from the two-seven, the lot that was around when he was, and he is the one who, out of the lot of them, has the most stories to tell.

He is the one who will remember things in the middle of the night, and the one who will answer a phone call at any hour.

He is the father figure in the precinct, the one who will go to wherever his detectives are, because he knows that the civilian side of them is one that they do not want the rest of the city to see. He is the one who will tell them what they need to hear, even if they don't want to hear it, and the one who has no problem getting in their faces about things. He is the one who pulls them back before they cross the line, like a parent would pull a child out of the street before the car comes, and he is usually the one who will come around their homes after a hard case, just to make sure they are all right.

He is the one who orders psych evaluations and the one who lets them talk to him instead. He is the one who sleeps in the squad room and sometimes, goes out for coffee, leaving a cup on each desk right before the squad comes in to work. Every now and then, he is the one who will finish their paperwork for them, and leave it there so that they will see it and know that they don't have to worry about. He is the one who leads them through the proverbial fires and onto the streets so they can do their jobs; sometimes, he plays the role of the one who keeps them from falling apart.

But no matter what role he plays, he is still their commander, and he is still their friend, someone they can count on in a sea of nearly nine million people, when there isn't anyone else.


	7. Detective Beck and Dani

**A/N: Ok, you guys are probably going to have a fit about this one (I really hope not), but I was looking at the way I'd gone about this, and realized that it wouldn't work unless I used Beck. So...here she is. **

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She is the transplant come in from Warrants.

The funny thing about this is that she is the one who least expected to be drawn out to take the empty position in the Special Victims Unit. She is the one who did her homework and found out exactly what she was getting into. She is the one who stared at Detective Benson's picture on a computer screen and knew that no matter what she did, she would never really take this other woman's place. She is the one who didn't really want to leave Warrants at all, because she liked where she was. And she is the one who went in not knowing what to expect, because she is the one who was trained to expect the unexpected.

She is the new kid and the rookie in this unit, because her experience is somewhere else.

And at the same time, she is the one who can learn quickly. The one who will jump in headfirst with no questions asked, because she isn't used to working any other way. She is the one who is used to running without a partner. The one whose last captain told her that she pushed too hard, even if she did get the results that the department was looking for, and the one who wonders some days if she's going to make it or if she's going to fall apart on the streets. She is the one who pushes to keep someone in prison and the one who sometimes lets the lines blur because there isn't really anything else she can do about it.

She is the one the department calls Detective Beck.

What she finds ridiculous is that when she is Detective Beck, there is no stopping her, even at points where someone should be able to. And when she is Detective Beck, she is the one who is not afraid to get into someone's face, to aim her gun at a suspect in the interrogation room like she's going to shoot him, only to take out the cartridge so she doesn't. She is the one who scares the hell out of Detective Stabler, the one who pisses off Detective Munch and the one who rarely, if ever, talks to Detective Tutuola. She is the odd one out, the one that no one knows what to do with, because they haven't ever dealt with anyone like her before.

She is the one who gets the others to arrest someone, just because she's convinced it's him.

There isn't supposed to be any room for mistakes in the job she does, but sometimes, she makes them, and sometimes, they all do. She is the one who sees a thirty-year-old man kissing a girl who looks like she's about twelve, and she is the one who handcuffs him before the one who will be her temporary partner comes along and informs her that the girl is actually eighteen. She is the one who can talk an older victim into reliving what she went through for the sake of taking another rapist off the streets. She is the one who knows more than one language, and the one who sometimes uses this to her advantage. She is the one who sometimes screws up, and the one who knows it, even if she doesn't like it.

She is the one who tells Detective Stabler that she'll get used to it at some point.

And he is the one who tells her that if she does, it's time for her to leave. She is the one who doesn't take him seriously, because she is so convinced that she can handle it. She is the one who lets herself get suckered in by a little girl whose dark side she does not see until her apartment gets lit up, and she is the one who wants to help the victims, in any way she can, even though sometimes, her ideas aren't the best ones in the world. She is the one who stares through a window in Bellevue's psychiatric ward at this child who wanted to die, and says that she doesn't think she can take it, but if Detective Stabler wants her to stick around, she will.

He tells her that she can only stick around if she herself wants to, and so she leaves.

The differences between Detective Beck and Dani are a lot more obvious than she thinks they are sometimes. At night and after hours and whenever she gets ordered from the precinct, she is Dani, because there isn't anyone else that she can be. Dani is the one who sometimes thinks that she's going to fall to pieces and the one who somehow manages to keep herself together with the thought that in the morning and when she's allowed back to the precinct, she will be Detective Beck again. She is the one who leaves her personal life in the shadows because she doesn't like to think about it, and the one who doesn't like to think about it because it hurts.

She is the one who pushes every year to keep a certain someone from getting parole.

And not in the usual way, either. Dani is the cop's wife who lost her husband in a random shooting, and the one who struggles every day to deal with it. She is the one determined not to let anger consume her, and yet it's not always that easy. She is the one who lies awake at night and stares at the other side of the bed, because she knows there's no one else there, and she knows that it's likely there won't ever be anyone else there again. She is the one who gave her heart away once, and doesn't know if she could do it again, because it is only just starting to come back. She is the one who gets drunk sometimes and does things that she'll regret, and she doesn't think that either she or Elliot really knew what they were doing, and it's almost funny, but at the same time, it's not.

Dani is the one who knows how to ice-skate, but not how to sing.

She is the one who laughed at her sister-in-law, who once insisted that anyone could sing, and she is the one who retorted that if anyone could sing, then anyone could ice-skate. She is the one who dragged said sister-in-law to an ice-skating rink, where they then proceeded to prove each other wrong. She is the one who visits her husband's grave every year on her birthday, and his, and what would be their anniversary if he was still alive. She is the one who leaves something every New Year's and every Christmas, and the one who talks to a headstone as if the person who it belongs to can hear her. She is the one who wipes away her tears before anyone can see them because she doesn't want to appear weak in front of anyone but herself.

She is the one that the squad never got to know.

Dani is the one who hides behind the shield that is Detective Beck, because sometimes she's too afraid of getting hurt to really let the other side of her show. Detective Beck is the one who isn't afraid of anything, and doesn't hesitate about anything, either, but Dani is the one who sometimes manages to hold her back. It took her a while to figure out that there were two people stuck in the same body, but now she is the one who knows she needs to figure out the balance between the two of them, because now that she knows, the lines are blurring more often than not.

She is the one who returns to Warrants with her heart on her sleeve because of all that she has seen, and she is the one who still doesn't know when enough is enough.

But at the same time, she is the one who has finally learned to let it go.


	8. Detective Lake and Chester

**A/N: Ok, people, two more chapters to go. Knowing me and the fact that I'm currently on an SVU kick, this probably means you'll get said two remaining chapters tonight. Here is chapter eight. **

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Now that he has a partner, he isn't sure what to do with himself.

He is the one who is so used to working without someone else that now, things seem even more strange than they did in Brooklyn. He is the one who doesn't sleep, the one who stays in the squad room at night, because he doesn't have anything better to do. He is the one who will stare at the whiteboard with all the pictures stuck to it and the one who will fiddle around with all the digital stuff until it works the way the unit needs it to in order to solve a case. He is the one sometimes points out things that the others have already seen, and sometimes is the first one to see anything.

Every now and then, he is the one who doesn't know how to handle it.

The amusing thing about this is that he's never been one to not know how to handle anything. He is the one who laughs at this fact, because he is the one who, in Brooklyn, had to learn how to handle it, because he didn't have anyone else to lean on. He is the one who walked alone more because no one else wanted to work with him than because he didn't want to work with anyone else. He is the one who none of the others could really stand to be around for too long, and he is the one they talked about whenever they thought he couldn't hear them. He is the one who dealt with the hurt that this caused and the one who was determined not to let it get in the way.

He is the one the new unit still calls Detective Lake.

When he first came in, he was the one Sergeant Munch was looking at suspiciously, like he came in to take someone's place. He is the one currently assigned to partner off with Detective Tutuola. He is the one who responds to the 10-13 that Detective Benson calls in, and one of those involved in the squad room explosion. He is one of those present when a suspect knocks Detective Stabler backwards into a car window, and the one who sits in the squad room to keep track of the phones and to sit and wait until one of the others calls to let him know how everything is. He is the one who tells ADA Novak that he'll remember that she isn't a 'cheap date', as if it's going to go somewhere, which, in all honesty, he really doubts.

He is the one who is still trying to fit into a place that doesn't seem to want him, either.

This unit is a lot closer than the other one he served in, and he is the one who knows this and takes this for what it is. He is the one who sees the dark side of the city every day, and the one who keeps his cell phone on no matter what, just in case a call comes in. He is the one who will drop everything and run when the call does come, because he is the one who figures that the less time he wastes, the sooner they will find the one they're looking for. He is the one learning to run interrogations with a partner, and the one who is still trying to figure out exactly what he's doing here, and why he transferred when he was perfectly fine in Brooklyn.

Sometimes, he thinks that one side of him might be shielding the other from the world.

It isn't the strangest theory, when he thinks about it. In the precinct, he is supposed to be Detective Lake, because being anyone else just doesn't feel right, but then, outside the precinct, sometimes Detective Lake lingers, and sometimes, Chester pushes him out of the way. It is this other side of him that he wonders about sometimes, because this is the side that will take a walk at the most random hour of the night that he can think of, just to clear his mind. He is the one that sometimes leaves his gun locked in the desk, just so he doesn't have to think about it, and the one who has a sketchbook at home that no one else has ever seen.

This is the side of him that is hidden from the unit and from the rest of the world.

What's stupid about this is that Chester is the one who sometimes lets personal views get in the way of what should really be happening. He is the one who can sit there in silence for hours and not say a word, because there isn't anything to say. He is the one who doesn't mind whether or not he's alone, because sometimes, being alone is better than being with someone else. He is the one who was always seen as the odd one out as a kid and the one who didn't care then, but for some reason, cares now, because he dislikes knowing that the others are as close as they are and knowing that it will still be a while longer before he's a part of that. He is the one who wants a place in this unit, but doesn't know how to put it in words.

He is the one with secrets in his past that no one else knows about.

Outside the precinct, when he is supposed to be Chester, he is the one who will wander into a bookstore, just because it's open and because the last book he read is sitting on a bookshelf, waiting for another to come and sit beside it. He is the one who will spend his lunch hour sitting in the library, because it is the last place in the world that anyone will think to look. He is the one who comes off as knowing everything about almost every building in Manhattan, which is annoying sometimes, even to him. He is the one who can quote various poems off the top of his head and sometimes watches movies he's seen over and over in English in the different languages, because he thinks the dubbed voices are amusing.

He is the one who will keep everything to himself unless he's asked directly.

He is the one that does not admit to the fact that thunderstorms bother him, even though in an off moment, both Fin and Elliot saw him jump at the sound of thunder cracking outside the precinct. He is the one who tells Olivia in another off moment that whether or not everyone else believes it, he does have a reason for being there besides the brass deciding to transfer him over. He is the one who ended up sitting opposite from Casey at the place where the others dragged them to, and the one who sometimes gets on Melinda's nerves in the morgue. He is the awkward one who knows that at some point, he's going to have to fit in, because it's not going to work if he doesn't.

And at the same time, Chester is the one who will sit and watch the raindrops slide down the glass in the window at home.

He is the one who once tried counting the stars only to give it up once he lost count after realizing he'd counted the same stars over and over again. He is the one who knows every file he's ever worked, every living victim he's ever crossed paths with and every one who didn't make it. He is the one who takes it personally sometimes, and the one who pushes the personal feelings aside so he can deal with the case as a detective and not a civilian. He is the one who used to sit with a flashlight under the covers at night with a book in hand and is now the one who will fall asleep sitting up because he stayed up too late reading again. He is the transplant who is slowly starting to fit in, the fifth wheel, but at the same time an important member of the squad (whether or not the others think of him that way), and on the other hand, he is someone who is learning to trust them as they are.

Before Brooklyn, he hadn't realized that there were two sides of him. And now that he knows, he isn't too sure it settles all that well with him.

But then, there isn't really anything he can do about it.


	9. ADA Cabot, Alex and Emily

**A/N: So, as it turns out, today will be the day that the last two chapters go up, 'cause I got distracted last night and if any of you saw the preview for next week's episode, you'll know why. In any case, this one's a little more complicated than the others, but there you have it. **

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She is four people all in one.

The stupid thing about this is that she used to only be three people, and before that, she used to only be two people. She is now the one who works from home, waiting for the child she adopted to come home from school. She is the one who named her cat 'Sixteen', because it is the number of the precinct she used to work with. She is the one who is still not afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly where they need to go and what she thinks of them. She is the one who returned home to take on the man who tried to kill her and the one who scared the hell out of ADA Novak, Detective Stabler, and Detective Benson.

She is the one who is still a lawyer at heart.

Right now, she is the one who sits on her computer all day doing day trading and what not, trying to figure out exactly what she really wants to do with her life. She is the one who dreads the day the doorbell rings, because she does not want it to be someone telling her she has to move again. She is the one who pissed off the Feds once upon a time, and scared the hell out of the former District Attorney Arthur Branch because she didn't want to back off from taking on a drug dealer and his cartel. She is the one who once told Detective Benson and Detective Stabler that she'd stuck her neck on the line for them, and she wanted it back, thanks.

She is the one the Special Victims Unit knows as ADA Cabot.

Or rather, she used to be. She used to be the one who had the take-charge and take-no-prisoners attitude. She used to be the one who could bend the rules but not break the law to get what she needed in order for the detectives to get what they wanted. She used to be the one who could get search warrants and walk into someone's house, and the one who once pulled a stunt that nearly got her fired, because she told Benson and Stabler that she had the warrant, even though she didn't, and later, she found herself talking to Elliot and Olivia, apologizing for it. She is the one who was assigned to SVU when things turned upside down the first time around and the one who stuck with them until she could no longer.

She is the one who used to search first and ask questions later.

She is the one who wanted answers. The one who would fight tooth and nail for justice. The one who told the detectives once that an eye for an eye left the whole world blind. She is the one who stood on the steps of the courthouse and told Detective Munch that it was just the way things had gone, and what would he have done if it was his child, to which he had replied more as John: "Anything I could have."

Every now and then, she is the one who argues points with other parents, just because.

The lawyer side of her never left. She is the one who will negotiate with this child she has adopted unofficially, the one who will talk to people she has met on Instant Messenger and the one who will debate things with them to the point where they sign off, and she is the one who thinks it's funny. She is the one who stays up late at night to take care of the online paperwork because she is so used to being in an office doing paperwork late at night that she can't seem to let go of this habit. She is the one who keeps a picture of the unit on her desk because she can, because all she has to do to explain is say that they were old friends, and it will not be a lie.

She is the one who used to be Alex Cabot, but she is no longer that woman.

Oh, she still is, inside, somewhere. But before she was this new person, she was Emily, and she didn't have a child. Before she was this new person, she was the one who dated an insurance salesman and hummed the Mr. Softy song when she got homesick. She was the one who stared out the window in Wisconsin, towards the east, and where she knew New York was, because she wanted to go home. She is still the one who wants to go home, but somehow, things are different. And she is the one who holds it together even when she is falling apart, just like she used to do when she was Alex.

When she was Alex, things were easier.

Alex was the one was in control, but the one who sometimes relinquished it. She is the one who cried for an hour when she read the news in New York and saw that her mother had died. She is the vulnerable one who hid behind ADA Cabot in the courtroom and now hides behind someone else. She is the one with the sarcasm who pushed ADA Cabot into telling a dealer that his victim could say anything she wanted about his "performance", but he wasn't actually allowed to kill her.

She is the one hidden in one persona and then another.

First she was Emily O'Brien, now she is Emily Marchand. She is the one who didn't have a child before, but does now. Emily is still Alex, who is still ADA Cabot in the back of her mind, and the two Emilys are two different people and so she is four. She is the one who balances these four because she is the one who knows that if her identity changes, she probably won't be able to let the last one go.

She is the one who left one life behind to gain another.

And she is the one who can litigate in her sleep, the one who is friends with Elliot and Olivia and John and Fin, and now Casey. She is a colleague to Detective Stabler and Detective Benson, and Detective Munch and Detective Tutuola. She is a legend now in the District Attorney's office and to ADA Novak.

She is the one who lost her life and went back again.

She is also the one who can change at a moment's notice, and the one who is still a lawyer at heart. She is ADA Cabot and Alex and the two Emilys all in one, and sometie s, one personality bleeds into another.

She is the one who has drawn the lines between them because she has no other choice.


	10. Detective Stabler and Elliot

**A/N: Technically, I already have one of these as a one-shot for Elliot. But I couldn't leave him out of this one, otherwise it would have driven me up the wall, so there you have it. **

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He is the temperamental one. 

He is the one who has been in the unit for most of his career, the one who volunteered in right after he made detective. He is the one who knows how it is to be the new kid in the unit, and the one who has been a mentor. He is the one who the others call lead detective, because he's been there the longest, but he doesn't think he holds that role on his own. He is the one who sometimes laughs at the average of two years, because he's a decade and more over that.

He is the one who lost one partner to a gun, and another to retirement.

And he is the one who stood, grief-stricken, in Captain Cragen's office upon hearing news of Detective Rossetti's death. He is the one who stood beside his late partner's widow at the funeral, and the one who wears a black band over his shield sometimes for other officers when they fall. He is the one who will sit vigil at any hospital in any borough, and the one who will stand in the back at the funerals of victims who didn't make it, and remain there, unnoticed until it is over. He is the one who has the department as such a part of him that sometimes, even being on leave hurts.

He is the one that the unit calls Detective Stabler.

What this means, he isn't exactly sure of, but he does know that he is the one who too often has to answer a call in the middle of the night, and the one who sits in the precinct with a cup of coffee at all hours, so he and the others can break a case. He is the other half of the partnership between him and Detective Benson, and sometimes, he's a pain in the ass, and he knows it. He is the other one besides Sergeant Munch who has supposedly seen it all, even though he knows he hasn't, and he is the one has run a case with both Benson and Detective Tutuola, only to get in over his head, yet again.

He is the one who thinks sometimes that it's funny when this happens, and other times, doesn't.

There have been too many cases where he gets in over his head, and somehow, he is the one who can find his way out of it. He is the one who stared across the desks at his partner's empty chair while she was gone, and the one who put up with Detective Beck only because he had to, never mind one off moment. He is the one who gets in ADA Novak's face when she annoys him and the one who wants to laugh when she pushes back. He is the one who has toed the line many times before, and has sometimes crossed it, and the one who knows that if he pisses Benson off, she'll knock him a good one. He is also the one who sometimes knows when enough is enough, and if he knows what's good for him, he'll leave before he does something stupid.

He doesn't always do that, but sometimes he does, and then everything changes.

There is a big difference between being Elliot and being Detective Stabler, and it took him a while to figure it out, but at some point he did, and now it's not as complicated. The lines are there, they have been drawn, and Elliot is the one who appears whenever he's not at work, and the one who makes it so that being on leave doesn't hurt. He is the one who will answer the phone and talk for a minute to the latest of his daughters' boyfriends, just to get on their nerves, and the one who doesn't pay attention to the fact that life doesn't always go the way it's supposed to go, because most of the time, it does. He is the one who wanders around the house at night when all the lights are off to make sure that the doors are locked and the windows are closed, and the one who will sit at the old piano in the living room and play on those nights where he isn't the only one who can't fall asleep. Sometimes that tactic works, on other nights, it doesn't.

He is the one who sings when he thinks no one is listening.

What amuses him about this is that half the time, someone is listening. He is the one who used to turn on the music and let his daughters stand on his feet while he pretended to waltz around the kitchen, and would, still, if they hadn't gotten too old for it. He is the one who used to hold his son up and move down the row of monkey bars at the playground just so he could make it all the way across, and the one who will unplug the phone on weekends sometimes, just to spend a quiet moment with his wife, with no interruptions. And every now and then, he's the one who will drag the whole family out for no good reason, except for that they're all home and there's nothing else to do, so why not?

He is the one who watches his children while they sleep.

Once upon a time, he thought that maybe it was a little bit strange, but now he is the one who can stand there for quite a while, just staring. He is the one who will turn off the lights that they leave on, and replace the blankets they've kicked off, and close the windows they've left open and turn on the ceiling fans instead. He is the one who will sit on the front porch whenever he's home in the afternoon, just to watch, and the one who sometimes gets talked into whatever game the kids are playing, because he's also the one who doesn't try to give them lame excuses as to why he can't, because he's sitting right there doing nothing as it is.

He is the one that has a constant stream of kids going in and out of the house.

And he is the one who doesn't care, because he is the one who knows what it's like to be lonely. He is the one who let a stray cat into the apartment he had in Manhattan and somehow managed to talk the rest of the family into letting said cat come across the bridge with him. He is the one who tells Detective Lake that working too hard can cause you to lose everything. And then he is the one who finds out that Chester was brought up in the system and the one who helps in and Fin break their latest case.

He is the one who will always make the trip across the bridge, no matter what.

Every now and then, he is the one who will show up at Olivia's apartment with a pint of chocolate ice cream, just to make her feel better. And sometimes, he is the one to sit and talk to John about life and love and everything in between. He is the one who knew Detective Beck, but didn't really know Dani, and the one who is perfectly comfortable having a drink every now and then with Casey.

He is suits and ties and a gun and a gold shield, and hen he is a t-shirt and sandals, a watch and a wedding band. He is a detective who is in someone's face and out on the streets, and he is the father and husband who sometimes wears his heart on his sleeve and who somehow always knows how to fix everything. He is the one that can comfort victims with the promise of justice and the one that can comfort one of his kids with little more than a hug.

But that is life, and somewhere along the lines, he learned to balance it out, the same as everyone else has.

There isn't really anything else that he, or they, can do.


End file.
